52 
ANATIM. 
the northern part of the Irish channel.” Their chief haunts 
known to me are, to begin northward, Loughs Swilly, Foyle, 
Larne, Belfast, Strangford, Dublin Bay,* * * § the harbours of Wex- 
ford, Waterford, Youghal, and Cork. In Kerry they are confined 
to Tralee Bay, being abundant there during winter ; + and are 
stated to be so likewise in the bays of Connaught. 
The bird is thus mentioned by the following authors : — 
According to Boate’s f Natural History of Ireland,’ published in 
1726, “ barnacles are of the wild-goose kind, and like them migrate 
from foreign countries to Ireland ; they commonly come into Ireland in 
August, and leave it about March ; their taste is very different, accord- 
ing to the places where they feed ; in most places they are so rank 
that no curious palate can dispense with such unsavoury food ; but in 
other places they have a most delicious relish, rather better than either 
a wild duck, teal, or snipe 4 This is the case of the barnacles at 
Londonderry and Wexford, and I hear the same concerning those at 
Belfast : the difference, I understand, arises from the food ; at London- 
derry, in the bay commonly called Lough Foyle, there grows a grass 
that sends out a stalk above a fathom long, the root of which is white 
and tender, and continues such for some space above the root, and it 
is almost as sweet as a sugar-cane : § the barnacles dive to the bottom 
and lay hold on it as near as they can to the root, and pull it up with 
them to the surface of the water, and eat the tender part of it, the rest 
they let drive with the wind to the shore, where it lies in great heaps, 
* Very common from November to April, (Mr. R. J. Montgomery.) 
f Mr. R. Chute. 
J In works published in 1848 and 1849, opposite opinions are expressed re- 
specting the quality of this bird as food. The Rev. E. S. Dixon, in his volume on 
‘ Ornamental and Domestic Poultry,’ when expatiating on white-fronted geese, al- 
ludes to an unfounded supposition that “ their flesh would be fishy, as in the scarcely 
eatable brent goose” (p, 94) ; and in another place mentions this bird as “ fishy, 
strong, and oily” (p. 151). Mr. Knox, on the contrary, in his ‘Ornithological 
Rambles in Sussex,’ remarks on it : — “ This is the best bird I ever tasted; the flesh 
is as tender and juicy as that of a teal, and there is a total absence of the fishy flavour, 
which renders so many of our water-fowl unfit for the table” (p. 236). 
§ Hence, we may presume, set down in a work published in 1837 as Fucus sac- 
charinus ! In the description of the county of Londonderry, in Lewis’s ‘ Topogra- 
phical Dictionary of Ireland’ (vol. ii. p. 294), we learn that “ Among wild-fowl, one 
species is very remarkable, the barnacle, which frequents Lough Eoyle in great num- 
bers, and is here much esteemed for the sweetness of its flesh, in like manner as at 
Wexford and Strangford, though elsewhere rank and unsavoury ; this difference 
arises from its here feeding on the Fucus saccharinus .” 
